Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Augustana College Public Radio Station Profile

It's kind of rare to see extensive radio station profiles in the press these days, so here's a nice lengthy one about a college public radio station in Illinois. Today's profile of Augustana College public radio station WVIK in the River Cities' Reader discusses the future of the station and how they may have to respond in order to maintain listeners.

The piece quotes WVIK's General Manager Frank Sundram when it states:

"...WVIK listeners 'trend a little bit older' than the National Public Radio (NPR) affiliates nationally. 'In terms of income, we also tend to skew a little bit higher.'

Sundram says all the right things about WVIK, and his words should soothe those who tune in to the station for their NPR, classical-music, and local programming. 'You don't fix what isn't broken,' he said. 'There's not much that needs fixing here.'

The current mix includes 17 hours of classical-music programming and seven hours of news programming each weekday, and an eclectic weekend lineup that includes everything from Art Talks...to jazz to NPR staples Car Talk and A Prairie Home Companion."

By the way, Augustana College also has a student-run radio station WAUG, which seems to only be available on campus and online. Their website wasn't working today, so I couldn't learn too much. To add to the confusion, there's also another Augustana College in South Dakota, whose radio station KAUR, I've written about previously.